They stared at each other for several long seconds, neither of them speaking.
Chelsea looked past Violet then, to where the funeral was still underway. To where the three caskets were lined up perfectly, ready to be lowered into the ground. Her brows drew together, and Violet could see her working it out, piecing it all together, and then she turned back to Violet, her expression clearing. “Oh my god,” she breathed. And then again, as she squeezed Violet’s arm. “Oh my god.” She looked at Violet with eyes that were wide and lucid. “It was you, wasn’t it? It was you at the house on the lake.”
Violet’s heart crashed in her chest, but she didn’t answer. Chelsea didn’t seem to notice. She looked at Violet like she’d never looked at her before, with a mixture of shock and awe. “You were the White River student who found the bodies. And now you’re here, watching their funeral.” She frowned, confused all over again. “Why? Why would you come here?”
Violet reached up to cling to the tree for balance. Her head was spinning, and she was choking on the accusations her friend threw her way. As if somehow the truth was filling her lungs, making it impossible to breathe.
She looked at Chelsea, a girl she’d known her entire life. Someone she’d grown up with, someone she’d laughed with and leaned on. This was her friend. One of her very best friends in the entire world. Why shouldn’t she tell her? Why shouldn’t she know what Violet could do . . . and why she was here now?
She thought of Jay, and how he wasn’t talking to her because he was sick and tired of all the lies.
And then she thought of her grandmother, and how she’d once tried to confide in someone she’d cared about. Ian. How he’d turned on her and told others her secret. How she’d been considered a freak . . . and had been ostracized by her entire community. By her own family, even.
But this was Chelsea, Violet told herself, looking into her friend’s expectant eyes. Eyes that begged for an explanation.
“Come on,” Violet said abruptly, making her decision as she reached for Chelsea’s hand and dragged her away from the shelter of the tree.
“I don’t get it. What are we doing out here?” Chelsea complained for the millionth time. “When are you going to talk to me?”
Violet lifted her skirt as she picked her way along the overgrown path. It was cooler here, beneath the canopy of trees, and there were mosquitoes to contend with. She was glad for the sweater she’d swiped from her mom’s closet. “Just wait,” Violet told Chelsea, concentrating on her steps. It was harder to walk in the girly flats than she’d realized it would be this deep in the woods.
It was easier to concentrate now, though, since the bodies had finally been lowered into the ground and the first soft shovelfuls of dirt had been tossed upon their caskets. The bodies had said good-bye to the earthly world. They had their peace.
And so did Violet.
She hadn’t realized just how much tension she’d been carrying until that moment, until the last body had let go. It was almost hard to believe she hadn’t noticed it sooner, the way the muscles of her shoulders had felt bunched and tight, the way her jaw had clenched.
Everything unraveled now, freeing her as well.
“How much farther?” Chelsea asked from beside her, swatting at a bug on her arm. “I’m getting eaten alive here.”
But they were close now . . . very, very close. Violet could feel the vibrations just beneath her skin. Rippling outward as the tiny hairs all over her body stood on end, alert.
Violet stepped off the path, reaching for Chelsea and dragging her with her. Chelsea stumbled but caught herself before she actually fell. She even managed not to complain about the detour, and instead remained silent as Violet lost herself in the sensation that tugged her . . . reaching into her gut and propelling her forward.
Ahead of her, Violet could see a soft red radiance, the echo that came up from the ground, near the base of a gnarled pine trunk. A glow that existed only in that single space on the forest floor.
“Here,” she whispered reverently, bending down and scooping the soil with her bare hands. “I told you it wouldn’t be far.”
“Um, okay . . .” Chelsea said dubiously, as she fell back and watched, like Violet had lost her mind.
And maybe she had. Maybe this was all just a huge mistake.
It only took a second to uncover the body. A dead possum.
It was ugly and partially decayed and its teeth were still exposed as if it had died trying to defend itself.
Chelsea staggered backward. “Gross, Vi! What the frak? That’s disgusting!”
But Violet wasn’t deterred. She stood up and brushed her hands on her skirt. “You asked if it was me who found those bodies at the lake that day . . . ?” Violet said, speaking slowly now, carefully. She paused only for a moment and then plunged ahead. “It was me,” she confirmed, watching her friend closely for signs that this might be too much information to take in at once. “It’s kinda what I do, Chels.”
“What you . . . ? What do you mean, it’s what you do?”
Violet pointed at the possum and Chelsea glanced down too, flinching before she looked away again, acting as if she might puke. “I find bodies,” Violet told her.
She waited for Chelsea to say something, to tell Violet she was crazy or to warn her to stay away from her. Instead Chelsea looked stunned as she glanced first to Violet and then back to the dead animal, and then back to Violet again. Doubt gradually transformed her features.